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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: English skills, political spats and trampolines

From childish political spats to freak weather, via trampolines and the very cute accent of a certain ex president, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Published: 29 October 2022 12:06 CEST
Inside France: English skills, political spats and trampolines
Autumn sunshine at Wineck chateau in Katzenthal, eastern France. Photo by PATRICK HERTZOG / AFP

Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. Members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.

When the results came in for the parliamentary elections in June – revealing that Macron’s centrist alliance remained the biggest group in parliament but lost their overall majority – some optimistically predicted that this would usher in a new era of more consensual politics and lofty, platonic debates in the Assemblée nationale.

And if anyone was still in any lingering doubt, I think this week has finally killed off that notion.

In a single week we saw the government repeatedly resorting to the constitutional tool known as Article 49.3 to ram their budgets through a blocked parliament, and the various opposition groups staging no less than three no-confidence votes in a single evening. None of them passed, but the one that came the closest saw the far-right Rassemblement National (RN) joining with the leftist alliance Nupes.

In response, finance minister Bruno Le Maire tweeted this extremely grown-up response.

While Macron supporters rushed to push the ‘far-left, far-right, they’re all the same’ line, others pointed out that Le Maire himself – along with several other members of the current government – had also voted alongside far-right MPs in a motion of no-confidence against François Hollande’s government, way back in 2015. 

Highbrow debate indeed. 

Speaking skills

Taking of Hollande, I enjoyed listening to him on the podcast The Rest is Politics, hosted by the British former Labour spin doctor Alistair Campbell and former Conservative MP Rory Stewart.

Unlike many of the current cabinet, Hollande is rarely heard speaking English in public, but he’s apparently been having lots of lessons since his presidency ended in 2017 and he’s now taken the big step of doing a podcast in English. 

It’s a wide-ranging interview taking in lots of topics (including a very blunt assessment of Barack Obama), with a nice ending when Campbell (a fluent French-speaker) asked him a question in French, allowing Hollande to let his eloquence flow. 

Our Talking France podcast is currently acting like a French schoolchild and having a two-week holiday, but we will be back November 10th – catch up with our back catalogue HERE.

Lovely weather?

It’s been hard to get away from talking about the weather this week, as France basked in temperatures of up to 31C. Even here in Paris it got up to 24C, and although sitting typing this with the window open, wearing a T-shirt is undoubtedly very pleasant, it’s hard to get away from the fact that these are not normal conditions for October.

In fact 2022 has been a record-breaking year all round in France, and definitely not in a good way as soaring temperatures mean ongoing drought (30 areas are still on tight drought restrictions) and failed crops. Global climate plans have rarely felt so urgent.

Soothing moment of the week

If you feel the need of a couple of minutes of calm, this staircase and trampoline route from the famous French dancer Yoann Bourgeois is beautiful and strangely soothing to watch.

Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. Members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.

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INSIDE FRANCE

Inside France: French lose the plot, sports stars speak out and Paris prices fall

From the latest on the increasingly crazy French elections to the powers of a president, the influence of sports stars and the lustre of the Olympics, our weekly newsletter Inside France looks at what we have been talking about in France this week.

Published: 22 June 2024 10:54 CEST
Inside France: French lose the plot, sports stars speak out and Paris prices fall

Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.

Losing the plot?

Welcome to another crazy week in French politics – I’m not saying that this election is getting to me, but the other night I dreamed I was having an argument with far-left leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon. I think I need a holiday.

France might need a holiday too – the political discourse is getting increasingly wild, leading to our columnist John Lichfield to declare that the country has “taken leave of its senses”. 

Latest polling suggests that Marine Le Pen’s far-right Rassemblement National party would take the biggest vote share at 33 percent, followed by the increasingly fragile leftist coalition Nouveau Front Populaire with 29 percent and then Emmanuel Macron’s centrist group with 22 percent. Those figures would give none of the blocks an overall majority, instead leading to a total parliamentary deadlock.

French election breakdown: All the latest from the campaign trail

Earlier this week ‘Article 16 of the constitution’ was trending on French Twitter; this is the one that lays out the powers afforded to the president versus the prime minister, as people tried to work out what – if any – decisions Macron would be able to take in the final three years of his mandate.

READ ALSO: What does a French prime minister actually do

The satirical magazine Le Canard Enchâiné perhaps sums it up best in its cartoon, showing a man about to shoot himself in the head with a gun labelled ‘Rassemblement National’ and saying “We never tried this before”.

The Canard Enchainé’s cartoon as posted on Instagram

Sports stars engaged

On a more positive note, it’s been nice to see France’s biggest sports stars use their platforms to encourage people to vote, and speaking out against hatred and intolerance and in favour of diversity and inclusion.

I could not disagree more with the Spain goalkeeper Unai Simon, who criticised Kylian Mbappé’s call for people to vote against the far right, saying that footballers should “leave politics to other people”.

The whole point of living in a democracy is that politics belongs to everybody. As Mbappé said: “The Euros are very important in our careers, but first and foremost we are citizens and I don’t think we can be disconnected from the world around us.”

And I admit I’m biased about this – I’ve been a fan ever since I saw him make his professional debut at the age of 18 in my then-hometown of Castres – but I was also pleased to see French rugby legend Antoine Dupont taking a stand on another social issue, appearing on the front cover of LGBTQ magazine Têtu to decry homophobia (although the cover photo did rather make him look like he had forgotten his shades and was squinting into bright sunlight).

Talking France

We of course discuss all the election latest with John Lichfield in the latest episode of the Talking France podcast – and in what was perhaps linked to my need for a holiday we’re also discussing places to visit in France this summer.

Amid warnings of over-tourism we’re taking a look at the places predicted to be most crowded this summer – and suggesting some alternatives. Listen here or on the link below.

Fun and Games

It was thought that people might avoid Paris this summer – but the combination of good deals on the Olympic ticket resale site plus travel and accommodation costs dropping back to seasonal norms has seen a flurry of people booking a last-minute trip to the Games.

Personally I always thought the ‘everyone fleeing the capital’ narrative was a little over-played, but it’s been interesting to see that attempted price-gouging has also largely failed – at the start of the year there were Airbnb listings for frankly insane prices (I saw one that was €7,000 for two weeks), while now costs are largely at the summer average.

Paris travel deals to take advantage of as prices fall ahead of Olympics

Wrestling 

If you’re a Games fan I highly recommend the temporary exhibition at Paris’ Musée de l’histoire de l’immigration (a strong contender for the capital’s best museum, in my opinion) on the history of Olympics and their politics.

It also includes this statue which we’re told depicts ‘wrestling’ at the Olympics in antiquity. If you say so . . .

Photo: The Local

Inside France is our weekly look at some of the news, talking points and gossip in France that you might not have heard about. It’s published each Saturday and members can receive it directly to their inbox, by going to their newsletter preferences or adding their email to the sign-up box in this article.

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